Learning to play the tin whistle, the simple-system wooden flute, and Irish traditional music

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

WWW: Remembering a Kwela Master

Kwela is a genre of music created in South Africa in the 1950s, and characterized by an upbeat, jazzy pennywhistle lead. The name is a Zulu word for "get up," and the police vans which patrolled South African townships during the Apartheid era were slangily known as "kwela kwela vans." It seems that folks who ran illegal gambling games on the streets of the townships sometimes used kwela bands as cover or as lookouts:

Dice rattle, streetwise young voices call bets and argue, the dice stop rolling, cheers and groans as the coins are scooped up again.

Dice and cash vanish, out come pennywhistles and guitars, and the gambling school becomes a kwela band (the music named after the police van) and they swing into the irresistible tune of Tom Hark. The police rumble past in their van.

Aaron "Big Voice Jack" Lerole was "discovered" by a record company scout playing his pennywhistle in the street with his brother. They recorded a record the same day which eventually sold around five million copies. Six months later he was sold into slavery by the South African police. He was beaten by the farmer who had purchased him, which permanently lowered his voice, resulting in his nickname in later life. He escaped slavery after the intervention of an activist lawyer, resumed music performance, went on to tour Europe and Africa.

The kwela scene in South Africa essentially died when Spokes Mashiyane, one of its chief exponents, took up the saxophone. The kwela sound fused with Marabi, another indigenous South African music, forming mbaqanga. But Big Voice Jack continued to play Kwela, and made a comeback of sorts in the 1990s when South African-born Dave Matthews heard him play at the Bassline Jazz club:

However, it was at The Bassline Jazz Club in Melville Johannesburg that Jack's finest moment was set in motion. Jack was playing at the club and Dave Mathews, guitarist, songwriter and singer with the internationally acclaimed Dave Mathews Band, was in the audience. Dave's saxophonist had asked him to pick up a few pennywhistles while he was visiting South Africa and Dave approached Big Voice Jack after the gig to ask him where he could find them. Big Voice Jack decided to rather give his own whistles to Mathews. "I thought that I would never play in a big stadium in America, so I wanted my whistles to be there," says Jack. "So I gave them to him."

Big Voice Jack's generosity was repaid when the Dave Mathews Band invited him to come over to the States and play two gigs with them at the Foxboro stadium in Boston and the Giants stadium in New York. This invitation from arguably the hottest rock act in America at the moment is a fitting tribute to the lasting contribution that Big Voice Jack has made to South African music, and went down a treat. Jack's gigs with the Dave Mathews Band were recorded in a documentary by South African filmmaker Johnathan Dorfman called "Back to Alexandra." The film shows Jack on stage before an 88,000 strong crowd, jiving and jamming with the band like a man half his age. He went down so well that the band even asked him to play one of his own tunes, "Back to Alexandra," a song in which Jack gives vent to his lifelong hatred for guns.

I played with Jack Lerole during the apartheid era in a band called the Shoshangowe dolls.Anna Nkosi was the lead singer we had a huge band.Kevin Centner on flute, Mark Lederer on guitar and several other musicians and dancers.It was a priviledge to travel and play with him in concert.I will miss him and his fantastic energy there was only one Aaron Lerole.God bless Aaron.I now live in Canada and go by the name Susan Goldenberg.Aaron had many opportunities to work abroad but stayed because he had a real love of Africa and truelly was an icon of South African Jazz

Long time no speak. I go by the name of Akiva Centner now. I'm still active in musi and have rekindled my connections with some black musicians. Big Voice Jack and I were together for two and a half years from 1976 till 1978. We stayed together, sometimes breaking the apartheid law. How was that Botswana tour? Mad. I had the privilage of meeting up with him again shortly before he died at the old baseline. If anyone wants more memories, I have a wealth of them, let me know.

Hi Akiva, hi SusanI chanced back on this post and saw your comments about your time with Jack Lerole and would be absolutely fascinated to find out more.

Please do drop me a line via the email address on my kwela blog if you've time to share some of your experiences.

Hey Craig - thanks for letting us use your comments as a mini-forum. I was recently in touch with Christie Burns (a.k.a Dulcimergirl) who, I think, was involved in the Cork Festival. When she was at UCLA, she was lucky enough to learn from the Malawian kwela musician Donald Kachamba, whilst he was artist-in-residence there. I thought the continued irish/kwela connection was interesting ;-)

About the Author

I'm learning to play the tin whistle while not otherwise occupied with my job and my family. I can't teach you to play the whistle, but I've recorded the things I'm finding interesting as I learn, and maybe you'll find them worthwhile, too....